Shoot 'em up

Shoot 'em up (also known as shmup or STG) is a subgenre of the shooter genre of video games. In a shoot 'em up, the player character engages in a lone assault, often in a spacecraft or aircraft, shooting large numbers of enemies while dodging their attacks. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up. Some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of character movement; others allow a broader definition including characters on foot and a variety of perspectives. Shoot 'em ups call for fast reactions and for the player to memorize levels and enemy attack patterns. "Bullet hell" games feature overwhelming numbers of enemy projectiles.

The genre's origins can be traced back to Spacewar!, one of the very earliest computer games, developed in 1961 and eventually released in amusement arcades in the early 1970s. However, Tomohiro Nishikado, creator of Space Invaders, is generally credited with inventing the genre. Space Invaders premiered in Japanese arcades in 1978. Shoot 'em ups were popular throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. In the mid-1990s, shoot 'em ups became a niche genre based on design conventions established in the 1980s, and increasingly catered to specialist enthusiasts, particularly in Japan.